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161
ASC.ARMY.MIL
GETTING
GOOD DATA
PARCA makes strides in identifying
what's useful from myriad reporting requirements
by Augusta Zoe Hemann
How are my programs doing against base-
line? Which programs are likely to breach?
Which programs are successful, and why?
In what areas and acquisition phases do we
have the most risk? What impacts do a continuing resolu-
tion, congressional marks, and other fact-of-life changes
have on programs?
These are just a small sampling of the myriad questions
that acquisition leaders face every day. Over the past 10
years, the way the acquisition community does business
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to war, Army Force Generation, economic crisis, con-
tinuing resolutions, and the drawdown of the war effort.
These constant changes, coupled with the breakneck
speed of technological advances, have provided us with
plenty of data but a limited capability to relate the data
to meaningful context, identify our challenges, and assist
our understanding of their root causes.
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effectively evaluate lessons learned about successful and
unsuccessful strategies, we must be able to convert the
data into knowledge and provide analysis to understand
the root causes. Methods that navigate these many chal-
lenges, delivered in an affordable and timely manner, can
provide a good product that meets the needs of the Army.
Relatively inexpensive technology has made possible a
large increase in data and ad hoc reporting, and we have
created an environment that isolates data into narrowly
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have become less so.
The Program Assessment and Root Cause Analysis
(PARCA) Directorate, under the Assistant Secretary of
the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology
(ASA(ALT)), is charged with helping to make programs
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EFFICIENCIES